Trinity Western University (TWU) – a private, evangelical Christian university in Langley, British Columbia – has submitted its proposal to open a new law school. Accrediting a law school invariably makes that school a key part of the legal establishment in this country. TWU’s character and policies are discriminatory towards gays and non-Christians; indeed, these policies that distinguish it from secular Canadian universities are what make it anathema to the legal profession and its application should be unequivocally denied.
It should be said – as every Wright Man column does within the first two paragraphs – that there are far too many law students as it is. While it is true that there are issues relating to access to justice and to a lack of lawyers in smaller communities, the problem is not that we do not have enough lawyers: the problem is that we are doing a poor job of connecting our graduates to positions where they are needed. We are producing far too many law graduates, with the crisis in articling and the low hiring numbers as proof of this. Any new application for a law school should be rejected.
More importantly, TWU should have its proposal denied because its admissions policy requires students to sign a “covenant” that promise they will refrain from, inter alia, “sexual sins including… homosexual behaviour” – with the school maintaining the right to discipline or expel students for breach of this agreement. This is repugnant beyond belief. While TWU points to the Supreme Court’s 2001 ruling in Trinity Western v College of Teachers to point to the legality of its covenant for a teaching college, it is certainly fair (1) to question whether this case would be decided similarly today and (2) to say that we should demand a higher standard for the accreditation of the legal profession.
Bill Flanagan, dean of the Queen’s Faculty of Law and president of the Council of Canadian Law School Deans, recently slammed the proposal. In response, Jonathan Kay of the National Post sneered, “If Mr. Flanagan is truly bothered by TWU’s pro-Christian “covenant”, he is free to draft an anti-Christian covenant for his own school.” Encouraging secular schools, such as Mr. Flanagan’s Queen’s, to bar evangelicals is foolish. Instead of setting up barriers as to who can study at which recognized law school, we should ensure that there no groups are targeted for exclusion at any school.
Attempting to further kick sand in the eyes of his National Post faithful, Mr. Kay says, “The world will not stop spinning on its axis if the country gains a new school that happens to be animated by English Canada’s founding Christian creed.” This is a gross mischaracterization of the controversy.
In true libertarian fashion, Mr. Kay sets up an absurdly high barrier for state action – as if only when the world did stop spinning or there was some sort of other societal collapse would be it justifiable to deny TWU’s conscience rights. But we are not infringing on the freedom of TWU’s students and staff to practice their religion; we are deciding whether to grant state accreditation to another law school. Considering we have no need for another law school and that this proposal would create an avenue to practicing law that is unavailable to gays and non-evangelicals, we can and should deny the proposal on the grounds that it is not good policy.
Furthermore, this controversy is being cast as a culture war; it is implied that to deny accreditation on the basis of TWU’s anti-gay policies is to deny the core faith rights of Protestant Christians. It is unfair and simply untrue to cast homophobia as a central tenet of Protestantism.
The two largest Protestant churches in Canada, the United Church and the Anglican Church, have parishes that allow for same-sex marriages and the blessing of same-sex relationships, respectively. TWU itself belongs to the Evangelical Free Church of Canada, which was established in 1917 in the southern Alberta hamlet of Enchant, just outside of Medicine Hat. While the Evangelical Free Church maintains its opposition to gay relationships, these views are but one particular conception of Protestantism.
People in this country can believe in whatever religious or spiritual worldview they choose. This includes the right of Christians to believe that homosexuality is a sin based on a single line of the Bible (Leviticus 18:22), while simultaneously ignoring the rules that anyone “who curseth his father or mother must be killed” (Leviticus 20:9), that “[p]eople who have flat noses, who are blind or lame, cannot go to an altar of God” (Leviticus 21:17-18), and that crop rotation and wearing clothes made of more than one fibre are forbidden (Leviticus 19:19). Denying TWU a law school infringes neither its faculty’s nor its current university students’ freedom to profess their beliefs.
Everyone is entitled the right to practice their faith freely, provided they are not harming anyone else. This does not entitle them the right to demand state accreditation for a law school under the purview of a discriminatory religious community. We need a legal profession that is accessible to all, not one that carves up and shuts off opportunities for access n the basis of sexual orientation or the choice to exercise their conscience rights in a manner inconsistent with evangelical Christianity.
